As far as timeline goes, is it close enough on the horizon that I should just wait for it to come out, or should I figure out a temporary way to have my raspberry pi run roms for me until this is integrated into kodi more fully?

As far as development goes you are always welcome to check out garbears github repo. There are some new branches in there beginning with retroplayer15 and then some added pull requests from master. If you are brave you can try to compile it or just lurk in one of the various discussions on this topic.

As far as timeline goes, is it close enough on the horizon that I should just wait for it to come out, or should I figure out a temporary way to have my raspberry pi run roms for me until this is integrated into kodi more fully?

If you are looking for a full release or even an official alpha build, you're probably better off finding a temporary solution. If you want to learn how to build stuff, you can play with things quite a bit sooner.

(2015-02-19, 12:09)Mettbrot Wrote: As far as development goes you are always welcome to check out garbears github repo. There are some new branches in there beginning with retroplayer15 and then some added pull requests from master. If you are brave you can try to compile it or just lurk in one of the various discussions on this topic.

I try to support garbear as far as I'm able to and did a rebase of the libretro-gl stuff.
Doesn't crash but something's wrong with the rendering right now, just as information.

@garbear, while you dream big and are almost willing to give us the whole world anyway, can I suggest that under "Future Components" also add these additional components?

Game Store for games ROMshttp://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=173355
Provide a centralized Game Store for games ROMs inside Kodi to enable easy access to downloading of ROMs as digital content directly from inside the 10-foot GUI. To make games ROM downloadable from Kodi as easy as addons you probably need a new type of addons that can provide access to different digital distributions and content delivery networks. So when and if RetroPlayer finally makes it into Kodi mainline source code tree, the next thing it would really nice to have an Python Script or Plugin Addon in Kodi with a nice integrated GUI as part of RetroPlayer or a general Games Manager Library, with an content delivery interface called "ROM Store" or something similar, that content delivery interface would work like Kodi's existing Addon Manager, being a digital distribution platform with repositories and browsing of available addons, but instead of offering normal addons those plugins or scripts would instead only allow you browse game ROMs. Adding a on-demand digital distribution platform for downloading ROMs to RetroPlayer in Kodi, and at least have some legal ROM site repos added by default to that, and the users themselves could add links additional repos for sites that contain other ROMs. Kind of like how content delivery platform interfaces like how Cydia works on jailbroken iOS devices.

Shared online persistent gamer database server (for persistent datastore of game data)http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=201868
To extend on the network-play idea but different concept from simple peer-to-peer networked multi-player capabilities, as here the XBMC Foundation or Team Kodi would provide a gamer server that hosts a shared online database (and datastore) to enable the persistent saving of gamer player profiles ("gamer cards"), save player rankings, and high scores in one online location that can be seen across the Kodi gamer community if users choose to opt-in, create user account to login and upload such gamer data. RakNet ( https://github.com/OculusVR/RakNet ) can provide among other things provide a "Lobby Server" http://www.raknet.net/raknet/manual/lobby.html that is a system which provides a database powered lobby with support for friends, rooms, quick match, ranking, messaging, and multiple titles. This shared online persistent gamer database could act similar to similar to commercial arcade video game network communication systems like SEGA's ALL.Net (Amusement Linkage Live Network) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALL.Net and Taito's NESiCAxLive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NESiCAxLive

PS: Bump with reminder for garbear to update the original post in this thread with this new Github organization link from here:

(2014-08-21, 00:26)garbear Wrote: little update on how retroplayer fits in with XBMC:

this is the current layout of the retroplayer project. it is centered around two APIs, the Game API (connects retroplayer to game clients) and the Hardware API (connects game clients to input). the Hardware API moves all of the joystick code out of XBMC and into binary add-ons. i have also started working on support for the Retrode and retrode-like devices through the media reader sub-API.

(2014-08-21, 05:57)garbear Wrote: you'll notice the only functional difference is that RetroPlayer is no longer connected to any input. I've re-written the joystick API two or three times, and the end result was never satisfactory because I couldn't separate the input from retroplayer. now, with input gone, the complexity of retroplayer is greatly reduced, leading to more maintainable code.

putting as much code as possible behind APIs is generally a good strategy. i learned this rather late in the development of retroplayer, so there are still quite a few parts that are entangled. however, looking at this diagram, i think i'm on the right track - components are finally only communicating with their API, and not with other components

(2015-03-09, 12:28)Hedda Wrote: Game Store for games ROMshttp://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=173355
Provide a centralized Game Store for games ROMs inside Kodi to enable easy access to downloading of ROMs as digital content directly from inside the 10-foot GUI. To make games ROM downloadable from Kodi as easy as addons you probably need a new type of addons that can provide access to different digital distributions and content delivery networks. So when and if RetroPlayer finally makes it into Kodi mainline source code tree, the next thing it would really nice to have an Python Script or Plugin Addon in Kodi with a nice integrated GUI as part of RetroPlayer or a general Games Manager Library, with an content delivery interface called "ROM Store" or something similar, that content delivery interface would work like Kodi's existing Addon Manager, being a digital distribution platform with repositories and browsing of available addons, but instead of offering normal addons those plugins or scripts would instead only allow you browse game ROMs. Adding a on-demand digital distribution platform for downloading ROMs to RetroPlayer in Kodi, and at least have some legal ROM site repos added by default to that, and the users themselves could add links additional repos for sites that contain other ROMs. Kind of like how content delivery platform interfaces like how Cydia works on jailbroken iOS devices.

Here's a possible implementation strategy. Create the ability to scan library items from add-ons. Then, have Kodi keep track of which items in which add-ons are the most popular. Collect this information. Write a plug-in that shows the most popular games from all add-ons.

(2015-03-09, 12:28)Hedda Wrote: Shared online persistent gamer database server (for persistent datastore of game data)http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=201868
To extend on the network-play idea but different concept from simple peer-to-peer networked multi-player capabilities, as here the XBMC Foundation or Team Kodi would provide a gamer server that hosts a shared online database (and datastore) to enable the persistent saving of gamer player profiles ("gamer cards"), save player rankings, and high scores in one online location that can be seen across the Kodi gamer community if users choose to opt-in, create user account to login and upload such gamer data. RakNet ( https://github.com/OculusVR/RakNet ) can provide among other things provide a "Lobby Server" http://www.raknet.net/raknet/manual/lobby.html that is a system which provides a database powered lobby with support for friends, rooms, quick match, ranking, messaging, and multiple titles. This shared online persistent gamer database could act similar to similar to commercial arcade video game network communication systems like SEGA's ALL.Net (Amusement Linkage Live Network) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALL.Net and Taito's NESiCAxLive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NESiCAxLive

what is the scope of this component? this sounds like an entirely new project

(2015-03-09, 12:28)Hedda Wrote: Game Store for games ROMshttp://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=173355
Provide a centralized Game Store for games ROMs inside Kodi to enable easy access to downloading of ROMs as digital content directly from inside the 10-foot GUI. To make games ROM downloadable from Kodi as easy as addons you probably need a new type of addons that can provide access to different digital distributions and content delivery networks. So when and if RetroPlayer finally makes it into Kodi mainline source code tree, the next thing it would really nice to have an Python Script or Plugin Addon in Kodi with a nice integrated GUI as part of RetroPlayer or a general Games Manager Library, with an content delivery interface called "ROM Store" or something similar, that content delivery interface would work like Kodi's existing Addon Manager, being a digital distribution platform with repositories and browsing of available addons, but instead of offering normal addons those plugins or scripts would instead only allow you browse game ROMs. Adding a on-demand digital distribution platform for downloading ROMs to RetroPlayer in Kodi, and at least have some legal ROM site repos added by default to that, and the users themselves could add links additional repos for sites that contain other ROMs. Kind of like how content delivery platform interfaces like how Cydia works on jailbroken iOS devices.

Here's a possible implementation strategy. Create the ability to scan library items from add-ons. Then, have Kodi keep track of which items in which add-ons are the most popular. Collect this information. Write a plug-in that shows the most popular games from all add-ons.

No that is not what I meant, sorry I don't think we are on the same page here, I apploguise for not being more clear, please see follow-up comments about a "Game Download Manager / Service" here instead where I tried to explain myself better http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid1952545

(2015-03-10, 02:33)garbear Wrote:

(2015-03-09, 12:28)Hedda Wrote: Shared online persistent gamer database server (for persistent datastore of game data)http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=201868
To extend on the network-play idea but different concept from simple peer-to-peer networked multi-player capabilities, as here the XBMC Foundation or Team Kodi would provide a gamer server that hosts a shared online database (and datastore) to enable the persistent saving of gamer player profiles ("gamer cards"), save player rankings, and high scores in one online location that can be seen across the Kodi gamer community if users choose to opt-in, create user account to login and upload such gamer data. RakNet ( https://github.com/OculusVR/RakNet ) can provide among other things provide a "Lobby Server" http://www.raknet.net/raknet/manual/lobby.html that is a system which provides a database powered lobby with support for friends, rooms, quick match, ranking, messaging, and multiple titles. This shared online persistent gamer database could act similar to similar to commercial arcade video game network communication systems like SEGA's ALL.Net (Amusement Linkage Live Network) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALL.Net and Taito's NESiCAxLive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NESiCAxLive

what is the scope of this component? this sounds like an entirely new project

Yeah you are right that the online server part is almost like XLink Kai concept and yes that would practically be an entirely new project, however if you would instead only focus on the the lobby system part of the idea for peer-to-peer local LAN network multi-player gaming then would see that you still need a frontend GUI inside Kodi even for just peer-to-peer, and therefor thinking ahead you could from the start try to make that frontend GUI lobby system work only in peer-to-peer mode at first for simple local LAN network multi-player gaming, and then later you could add the ability to connect to an online server on the internet which connect players all over the world for deathmatch multi-player gaming over the internet through one single lobby system as long as all are connected to the same server. And I believe this is what RakNet could do for Kodi.

This is a beautiful thing. The fact it supports libretro is the icing on the cake, as libretro cores are usually better developed than standalone versions.

Does this mean it'll support PC games as well? Because then I'd only need to use Steam/Origin to buy games. I could run them from inside XBMC, which is IMO a better solution. I could also add GOG games and standalone indie games to my library.

(2015-03-14, 08:09)natethomas Wrote: Curious. I was under the impression that borders like the one you describe, BlackCaz, are actually shaders in their own right.

Actually, the example which I proposed is utilizing, both, a shader and an overlay. A shader directly post-processes the actual gameplay image which is being displayed, and the overlay is merely a border which outlines the gameplay image (in this case, a GBA console). They are separate, independent entities, in their own rights. In order to fit the gameplay image into the border, you must allow custom aspect-ratios. I suggest looking into RetroArch to use the existing ideas of how this can be accomplished. RetroArch also has the ability to adjust the overlay's opacity and scale it's size by zooming in or out to have it encompass the custom aspect ratios.

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